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... GLPBAL NEWS ... NEWS The newspaper said the full story of events leading up to the ousted Iraqi President's capture on 13 December near his home town of Tikrit in northern Iraq "exposes the version peddled by American spin doctors as incomplete". A former Iraqi intelligence officer, whom the Express did not name, told the paper that Saddam was held prisoner by a leader of the Kurdish Patriotic Front, which fought alongside US forces during the Iraq war, until the leader negotiated a deal. This apparently involved the group's gain- ing political advantage in the region. An unnamed Western intelligence source in the Middle East told the Express that "Saddam was not captured as a result of any American or British intelligence". (Sources: The Courier Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, 27 December 2003) Active Sonar (LFAS) submarine detection trials which began in August at the top- secret British Underwater Testing and Evaluation Centre (BUTEC) at Kyle of Lochalse, on the west coast of Scotland. Moreover, Rota has been a US Navy sub- marine base for several decades. LFAS sonar has been developed by US scientists over the past decade and uses an underwater low-frequency signal to detect hostile submarines. Described as "millions of times more powerful" than the pulsed- sound location technology used by tradi- tional sonar systems, LFAS sonar is based on the fact that intense low-frequency sound—100 to 1000 Hz—can travel thou- sands of nautical miles through the ocean. The US Navy admits that the sounds— which are generated by huge transmitters towed behind TAGOS-class destroyers— can reach 235 decibels, approximately twice the average noise level of a jet engine. Since 1988, LFAS sonar has been tested 25 times for over 7,500 hours in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. Last year, whales of four different species died on beaches across the northern Bahamas during US Navy exercises. In August 2002, a flotilla of US Navy destroyers off the Spanish-administered Canary Islands carried out a series of LFAS tests which, according to US environmen- talists, resulted in the deaths of 17 whales. The beached mammals were found to have suffered internal bleeding and eye, ear and brain damage. On 31 October 2002, Judge Elizabeth LaPorte, sitting at San Francisco Federal Court, found that evidence compiled on the Canary Islands incident by five environ- mental groups, supported by testimony from marine biologists, showed that LFAS testing caused internal bleeding and disori- entation to a whole range of sea creatures, including whales, dolphins, seals and sea turtles. Judge LaPorte banned LFAS test- ing and use of LFAS technology off the US coast. Rather than challenge a federal court rul- ing, the Pentagon took the in-shore SUR- TASS test ban problem to the US State Department. According to the Dublin mag- azine Phoenix, the Bush Administration then asked the British Ministry of Defence to allow the Royal Navy to take over, and so LFAS tests "shifted to British warships" based in the Inner Hebrides. (Source: Intelligence, France, no. 429, 20 October 2003, p. 3) BANNED US LFAS SONAR TESTING CONTINUES Ren the head of the Spanish marine protection agency, CEPESMA, Luis Laria, claimed that shock waves from sci- entific tests carried out by the Spanish ves- sel Hesperides—operating, according to sources, out of the naval base at Rota in the Gulf of Cadiz—has caused the deaths of four giant squid off the Spanish coast. Few details of the incident were reported in the local or international media because of the secrecy surrounding the tests, but Intelligence believes they may be similar to the Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) Low Frequency YELLOWSTONE PARK SUPER-VOLCANO SET TO BLOW? eologists claim that Yellowstone Park, which happens to be on top of one of the largest "super-volcanoes" in the world, has been on a regular eruption cycle of 600,000 years. The last eruption was 640,000 years ago, making the next one long overdue. This next eruption could be 2,500 times the size of the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption. In July 2003, Yellowstone Park rangers closed the entire Norris Geyser Basin because of deformation of the land and excessively high ground temperatures. There is an area 28 miles long by 7 miles wide that has bulged upward over five inches since 1996, and this year the ground temperature on that bulge reached over 200 degrees Fahrenheit [93.33 degrees Celsius] (measured one inch below ground level). Everything in the area is dying and the ani- mals are literally migrating out of the park. In late July, one of the Park geologists discovered a huge bulge at the bottom of Yellowstone Lake. The bulge has already risen over 100 feet from the bottom of the lake and the water temperature at the sur- face of the bulge has reached 88°F [31.1°C] and is still rising. Keep in mind that Yellowstone Lake is a high mountain lake with very cold water temperatures. The lake is now closed to the public. It is filled with dead fish floating everywhere. The same is true of the Yellowstone River and most of the other streams in the park. Dead and dying fish are filling the water EY cD ow oY fee { aye ont pas! Mt, a 3 TY "My life coach advised me to hire a consultant to headhunt a mediator to sack my personal trainer." 8 = NEXUS www.nexusmagazine.com FEBRUARY — MARCH 2004